Graham Parker C/D

.. and a big feature in this months mojo ...

I guess you mean this nyt feature http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/arts/music/graham-parker-and-the-rumour-reunite.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Haven't read MOJO in a while, maybe it is time to start up again.

Hm, I've met the guy that wrote that Times article.

The DC area shows sold out too quick. Grrr

That was fun. Now if only someone could get Rockpile to reform.

Too bad, curmudgeon, you could have taken the Acela up and sat in my extra seat

So yeah, they are all over this new Judd Apatow movie so no doubt a few random googlers will catch the Mercury Vapors and show up here.

The reunion album is really rather good - I'm especially fond of the final track, 'The Last Bookstore In Town'. It could just be argued as the second-best GP & the Rumour album (after 'Sparks', natch). Having seen the reunion tour setlists, I really hope he brings the show to the UK. Haven't seen him since Blackbushe in '78.

I saw a guy on the subway after the show who had a GP shirt on and he told me he had flown in from England that day just for the show and was going back in the morning. New stuff was surprisingly good.

the show last night killed. GP and the R were all "on" and the new stuff WAS surprisingly fine but closing 4-5 Sparks songs and "stupefaction" was well stupefyingly great. got tix at the last minute, mostly because my wife wanted to go, and have to say I wasn't expecting much and got blown away, this is about as good as grey haired rock reunions get. fwiw I saw Neil Young & Crazy Horse last week too and GP and co >>>>>

Yeah, when he started doing all the Sparks stuff I started getting chills, which might have been just a symptom of my illness but I don't think so.

Choice stage patter:

"The movie opens on December 21, which is the day the world ends, so you should try to go to a matinee"

"This is a single. Now I don't know what a single really means anymore, I suppose it means that you can steal it individually"

Also some business about:
"We were trying to remember where we played the last time we were in New York, was it The Ritz or **didn't catch the other venue's name**?"
Man hands him a piece of paper, he looks at it
"The Bottom Line? That was 1976!"
Man stands there.
"What, you want it back?"

The are co-headlining with Ian Hunter on Long Island this weekend. Here is some Ian Hunter stage patter for comparison: free summer shows of NYC 2009

I believe IH and GP did a double bill
earlier at a benefit for the great Graham Maby, bass player for Joe Jackson and many others, including Marshall Crenshaw, who was left with a large medical bill after his wife's losing battle with cancer

stage patter was priceless

society for ethical culture was an interesting choice of venue though the sound was good - vey clear and we sat in the next-to last row all the way up in the rafters. seats resembled pews but cushions made em comfortable. i know about the ethical culture school etc but the auditorium had a pseudo-church vibe that's hard to explain, the statues seemed *vaguely* biblical, depicting guys who almost kinda sorta looked like jesus or some prophet w/o being too specific. like unitarian but more secular, maybe?

How were The Figgs?

(xp) I was way up there too, but in the second row from the rail. I hope you didn't mind my loudness during The Figgs sing-a-long to "Victoria."

I loved the way he held the audience off. Somebody requested the material we were all waiting to hear early on and he said "We'll get to that." Then there was that moment when there was a little pause he said "all right, there is an album we did back in 1979 and now we are going to side one track one off that album." Then there was still a heart-stopping moment of hesitation before they started up. Then he did a little bow and had all these choreographed dance moves he did during that part of the show. Actually I think there was a tiny hole in the mix during "Discovering Japan" because he wasn't playing guitar anymore but I think they probably boosted Brinsley after that so it wasn't a problem.

DIdn't really know from The Figgs before this, I had only seen GP solo before, but they won me over.

The Sparks part of the show was like when Andy Kaufman made a few minor adjustments to his wardrobe and all of a sudden turned into Elvis.

There was another story he told about fighting hard not to have a Phil Collins gated drum sound on his 80s recordings. Nonetheless when he sent around the MP3 of one of the songs to prepare for this tour the guys who hadn't played on it said "That was recorded during the 80s, wasn't it?" Today I read somewhere that he had fought with Ahmet Ertegun over this issue who proceeded to drop him from Atlantic Records! Hadn't even known he was on that label.

Besides the stuff off of the new album and off SoS, they began with "Fool's Gold," a little while later did "Nothin's Gonna Pull Us Apart," thereby dispatching with the first two albums. Somewhere along the line he also played the, um, title track off of Mona Lisa's Sister, "Get Started. Start A Fire" and a song off of Deepcut to Nowhere called, "I'll Never Play Jacksonsville Again." I thought at first he was talking about a "deep cut," but, as some of you must already know, it refers to the town in England that he is from. The first encore was mostly more from SoS. For the second encore, he walked out to the edge of the stage and looked dismissively at an audience member who had shouted a request , sneering "New York Shuffle?" and flapping his hand in a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me way, but that is what the band immediately started to play. The last song was "I Want You Back." Mark "Lovebug Starski" Coleman already mentioned "Stupefaction" off The Up Escalator, he can fill in the gaps or correct my errors.

Think I forgot "Watch The Moon Come Down."

Graham Parker sounds more like Elvis Costello than Elvis Costello. FTW.

It's fatal and it don't get better

Also: googler, please. This the Squeezing Out Sparks thread, not the Jumping The Shark thread.

Original videos for Local Girls and Protection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-9A2O6CwW4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ETAZSFWWs

I really like Live Alone in America, probably the first solo-electric-guitar album I'd ever heard when I was 18.

Don't know why the https, which seemed to mess up the embed. Try again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ETAZSFWWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C2SkcC3TXc

RockPalast version of Stick To Me From 1978
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAW6-_SsCOI

One more for now: New York Shuffle, 1978
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ipgtPCrd1O0&feature=endscreen

Take off the endscreen and see if the embed works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ipgtPCrd1O0

Nope.

Am I the only fule who didn't know "Hold Back The Night" was a cover?

A little jealous of the crowd that got to see this show, now with more Rumour-era material: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/graham-parker-draws-sold-crowd-402050

Seeing him tonight, psyched.

My friend in Chicago was dying to go but I think he has to go to the office Xmas party instead.

Didn't even know he was in town. Good for Bloodshot Records to be benefitting from the Apatow goodwill.

Ha, pretty sure it's not on Bloodshot. For sure there is a third-party publicist.

On a label called Primary Wave.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tcIGEcikL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Oops, thought I read somewhere that it was. Well, if it helps them sell the records of his they did put out...

I just saw an article in Chicago Tribune where he discusses that

Sun-Times, I think:

Parker is to record labels what Lindsay Lohan is to handcuffs. He has recorded for (in chronological order): Mercury (he skewered them in the rave-up anthem “Mercury Poisoning”), Arista, Elektra, RCA, Capitol, Dakota Arts (the Christmas EP), Rhino, Razor & Tie and most recently Chicago’s Bloodshot).

“It’s ridiculous to sign Graham Parker to save your record label,” Parker said with a laugh. “Paradoxically, I do quite well for Bloodshot. For this record I moved to Primary Wave, who has been getting investment deal money. For this album I need to pay for a publicist. I told Bloodshot I had this album and if I got a lot of money thrown at me I’d do it with Primary Wave. I got substantially more than most indie labels. Bloodshoot totally understood. They said they would advertise the record on their website and put up tour dates.”

That's why I thought it was on Bloodshot--they promoted it and linked to it on their Facebook page.

Yes, that was it.

there's probably an essay to write reclaiming Parker's post-SOS "lost" period: all those Up Escalators, Steady Nerves, and real macaws.

There are some good songs on those records for sure. "Stupefaction" off of The Up Escalator is in the current set list. Thinking about listening to some of his long list of "official bootlegs" as a way into the later material.

Right now listening to one called 80s Reverb Rules OK recorded live in Denmark with Brinsley and Andrew B between Steady Nerves and Mona Lisa's Sister. Read what the man himself says about it here: http://chairmanparker.blogspot.com/2011/03/80s-reverb-rules-ok-graham-parker-and.html

More concise description here: http://grahamparker.net/80sReverb.html

Guess that Chicago show is underway now. Randomly listening to these self-released live albums on Spotify is really working. Material that might have been ill-served by anonymous production gets a much better showing plus it is interspersed with some old favorites and trademark comedy banter.

'Twas a good show!

Happy Birthday Martin Belmont!